Yahoo's Build Your Own Search Service

ruphus13 and other readers alerted us to Yahoo's BOSS, Build your Own Search Service. It gives access to Yahoo's entire databases for Web, image, and news search with no cap on queries per day and no restrictions on mixing Yahoo's search results with others or re-sorting them, and without Yahoo branding visible. From their blog announcement: "As anyone who follows the search industry knows, the barriers to successfully building a high quality, web-scale search engine are incredibly high. Doing so requires hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in engineering, sciences and core infrastructure — from crawling and indexing technology to relevancy and machine learning algorithms, to stuff as mundane as data centers, servers and power. Because competing successfully in web search requires an investment of this scale, new players have effectively been prohibited from delivering credible alternatives to Yahoo! and Google. We believe the BOSS platform will begin to change that."

Microsoft probably knew.

[gcnaddict]

I can't see Microsoft justifying a Yahoo purchase unless they knew about the BOSS platform in advance, which is probably why the sale fell through in the first place.

Then again, I doubt BOSS alone would save Yahoo anyway.

Goog

[Faux_Pseudo]

Google already has this feature [google.com]. I wonder what the differances are. For example how come google didn't get a slashdot story when it launched its version?

Re:A little hard to believe

[imaginaryelf]

Which goes to highlight where the companies come from, and what the companies do. Google does search. Yahoo does a lot of other things, of which search is just one component, albeit a major one.

If you go to http://search.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] or http://ysearch.com/ [ysearch.com] then you get the same experience as going to google (classic).

Re:What's in it for Yahoo?

[wombatmobile]

what way do they plan to make money with this project?

From advertizing. Yahoo will feed ads to the people who use their search services.

--
Science is the depolitization of economics

It's a relaunch of an old API with a new TOS

[Animats]

BOSS is not really new. Yahoo already had the Yahoo Search API [yahoo.com], which does essentially the same thing. BOSS is essentially the Yahoo Search API with different terms of service. In particular, BOSS will, in future, allow "monetization". BOSS also allows users to intersperse their own search results with Yahoo's and run ads.

Google used to have a SOAP-based API [google.com], but they stopped allowing new users in 2006. It didn't force the caller to display ads. There's still a Google search API [google.com], but it's tied to their widgets and has restrictive terms of service.

We support both with SiteTruth. Yahoo search API version [sitetruth.com] Google AJAX search version [sitetruth.com]. The interface code is quite different but the end results are similar.

It's not about technology. It's about what you're allowed to do with the data:

• The Yahoo search API terms of service have a rate limit, don't allow you to add ads, but do allow reordering of results.
• The Google AJAX API terms of service don't have a rate limit, restrict presentation to Google's format, and don't allow reordering of results.
• The first rule of the BOSS Terms of Use [yahoo.com] is that you don't talk about the BOSS terms of use. "You shall not issue a press release or other written public statement regarding this TOU without Yahoo!'s written approval."

Re:A little hard to believe

[magarity]

That's because you go to Yahoo's portal page. Yahoo's search page [yahoo.com] is every bit as clean as Google's, and always has been. Meanwhile, Google's portal page [google.com] is every bit as busy as Yahoo's.

Re:It's a relaunch of an old API with a new TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

These are some of the limitations imposed by Google's API that are NOT applicable to BOSS:

"The API may be used only for services that are accessible to your end users without charge."

"You agree that you will not, and you will not permit your users or other third parties to: (a) modify or replace the text, images, or other content of the Google Search Results, including by (i) changing the order in which the Google Search Results appear, (ii) intermixing Search Results from sources other than Google, or (iii) intermixing other content such that it appears to be part of the Google Search Results; or (b) modify, replace or otherwise disable the functioning of links to Google or third party websites provided in the Google Search Results."

" incorporate Google Search Results as the primary content on your website or page; "

"You agree to include and display the "powered by Google" attribution adjacent to the Service search box."

"For all Search Results available through the Service, Google provides Google AJAX Search API attribution language (such as "clipped from Google - date" or such similar language as may be used from time to time). You agree to include this attribution, unmodified, adjacent to Search Results on your site."

Most importantly, BOSS can be completely under the covers, and allows you to MODIFY the results themselves as you see fit.

Re:Really Great Strategy

[Quixote]

From the FAQ [yahoo.com]:

Will I make money by hosting the Yahoo! Sponsored Search advertisements in my search application?

Yes. It will be a requirement to host our ads on your site. We're building this technology into our platform and it is coming soon. Yahoo! Search will share the revenue produced through these ads with developers. In the meantime, the API is open for free use without ads.

and

What if I want unlimited queries but I cannot take ads?

After the ad infrastructure is ready it will be a requirement to publish Yahoo! Sponsored Search ads as part of search applications that exceed a set QPD (Queries Per Day) level.

Re:Goog

[Quixote]

This is more than Google's CSE.

From Google's CSE docs [google.com]:

• Apply your website's look and feel to the search results page.
• Provide search refinements within results pages to make it easier for searchers to find the information they're looking for.
• Add sites to your search engine's index as you surf the web.
• Invite friends and trusted users to co-edit and contribute to your search engine.
• Make money from your Custom Search Engine by participating in Google's AdSense program.

Yahoo's BOSS allows you to retrieve raw results from their index, and then munge them as you see fit. Google does not allow you to tinker much with the results (just add/exclude sites), except maybe the presentation.